March 15, 11.18 a.m.
Harper and Denise abandoned their car a street away. The traffic was too bad. Hundreds of cars packed tight. They got out and ran hard towards the scene. There was no telling what the bomb had done or how many were injured. The priority for the team was to get the injured out of there and to secure the scene. His priority had to be to stop Jack Carney.
Harper moved through the crowds at the end of the street. He slowed as he came across the scene. A gray New York street spread out from the center-point of chaos. Scattered, twisted, smoking metal. The wasted hulk of an exhumed truck, quietly breathing gray-black smoke. The spread of debris. Dazed victims, some staggering at the edges of the blast, some moving on the ground, others still. The whole front wall of the museum blasted to pieces. Carney hadn’t targeted the empty synagogue but a museum full of people. What’s more, like some final insult, he’d chosen Aaron Goldenberg’s workplace. Harper’s mind raced.
He stared at the devastation in a civilian street. Blood on concrete. Torn clothes. Papers and shoes. Body parts against fast-food wraps. The pressure wave had been enough to crush the closer victims. Their bodies were hit by an impenetrable wall of high pressure and had been thrown against the buildings. Further out, the shrapnel had caused carnage. The mix of bright red blood and black soot was smudged across the entire frontage of the museum.
Harper made for the makeshift Incident Command. He scanned the scene quickly.
There was no one in the bomb zone except the essential medical services and the Bomb Squad. There were two Bomb Squad detectives in big green EOD 8 Bomb Suits, fifty layers of Kevlar shielding them from any potential explosion. Thank God that they’d put the city on red alert. Every team had been up and mobile. The response time was astonishing and it meant that lives were being saved. The bomb crew were on all fours looking under cars along the street with a mirror.
A great phalanx of injured bodies lay at the entrance of the Museum of Tolerance. It was the epicenter.
‘There’s too many. Far too many bodies,’ said Harper.
Denise was in shock. She turned. ‘What?’
‘Something’s wrong. A street scene at this time wouldn’t have been this busy.’
Harper watched for a moment as the paramedics continued the pre-hospital triage – a hell of a thing to be doing in a New York street: tagging each of the wounded red, amber or green depending on how long they’d live. The red-tags were already being moved to the ambulances. Amber and greens would have to wait in the street in horrible agony.
As soon as Harper and Levene entered Incident Command, they spotted Sergeant Luce Colhoon, who called them across.
‘Just got here,’ Harper said. ‘You have anything on the bomber?’
‘Listen, we’ve got emergency services taking care of the wounded. Three dead already in ambulances. We got the utilities on it – there’s a burst gas main somewhere down the street, but they’ve closed off the gas already. I’ve got no idea about the bomber. What we got to know, Detective, is this: what the hell happened?’
‘You speak to any witnesses?’
‘Nobody who can hear me. They’re all deaf.’
Harper went back to the street. He looked again at the mass of bodies outside the museum, and then across the street. Debris, smashed car glass. Walls full of shot. Dazed and wounded people sitting where they could, receiving treatment. The ground scattered with nails. A sickeningly barbaric device aimed at maiming the maximum number of people.
But there were too many dead and wounded. That’s what he saw again. Normally at this time, the street would’ve maybe had a dozen or so people on the sidewalks, but this looked like someone had let off a bomb in a crowd.
Harper edged forward, mentally totting up the numbers. He put his hand on the shoulder of a cop trying to clear a path for the paramedics.
‘You get anything from any witnesses?’
‘I don’t know. There was a guy on the second floor of the building opposite the museum who said he was watching the street. Saw a crowd streaming out of the museum – and then the blast shot his window out. He’s in one of the ambulances. Maybe he’s gone already.’
‘They were coming out of the museum before the bomb went off?’
‘That’s what the man said.’
Harper thought for a moment and looked up at the museum. There was a window out on the second floor. Not unusual given the scene, but it was the only one out. Maybe there had been a smaller blast first. Maybe it was just a coincidence. Maybe someone had set off an alarm.
Harper pulled Denise across to the entrance and in through the shattered glass doors. Two security officers were helping set up a temporary hospital area in the foyer.
‘We got to find out what happened,’ Harper told Denise. ‘Talk to people.’
‘This is where Aaron Goldenberg works. I need to find him. He might be hurt.’
‘Okay, try to locate him,’ said Harper. He went up to a security guard. ‘Detective Harper. I need some information fast.’
‘Okay, sir, I’ll tell you what I can, but you gotta speak up.’ The guard tapped his ears by way of an explanation.
‘Okay. Listen, did something happen prior to the blast, anything you see from in here?’
‘Yeah, something, but I don’t know what it was. The fire alarm went off and people began to walk towards the exits, then this crowd started down the stairs from the upper floors, in a panic, caused everyone to stampede. We couldn’t stop them. They got out of the doors and then, BAM! The device went off.’
‘The alarm went off first? You sure? Sometimes it can get confusing.’
‘It went off first. That’s why the blast hit so many. Like they were running right into it.’
‘Can you show me where the alarm was set off?’
‘We didn’t get a chance to look. The control is in the back office. I’ll take you.’
The security guard took Harper inside the main office and through a back corridor to the security unit. It was empty. The security officer stood in front of a bank of lights. ‘It’s flashing in Area 8B, I got to look it up, give me a second.’ Harper gazed at the TV screens as the guard looked up the code. Two screens were blank, but the two screens on the outside of the building were still working.
‘8B is up on the second floor in the exhibition room.’
‘And these two cameras that are out?’
‘Shit, I didn’t see. Okay. Maybe something happened. They’re both from the exhibition room. Shit. That’s bad news. You don’t think someone’s set off something to . . .’
‘To what?’
‘To create a diversion and steal the artefacts?’
‘If that’s what’s going on, it’s the most fucked-up theft I ever heard of.’ Harper was already out the door, his Glock 19 firmly in his hand as he leaped up the stairs to the second floor. The security guard followed.
The second floor was quiet. Harper stopped. The big wooden doors at the end of the corridor were closed. He waited until the security guard caught up.
‘They should be open, right?’
‘Okay, let’s take this nice and slow. We don’t know what’s going on.’
‘Nice and slow.’
Harper made his way down the marble corridor, his reflection perfect in the freshly polished floor. At the door, he stopped and sank to his knees. He put his eye to the large old-fashioned keyhole and stared for a moment. It was enough. He turned and pulled out his radio.
‘Sergeant Colhoon, it’s Detective Harper,’ he whispered. ‘I’m in the museum up on the second floor.’
‘So what have you got for me, Detective?’
‘This is worse than we thought. The first blast happened up here. We’ve got several casualties on the second floor. And you’re going to need to call a SWAT team. Maybe two. The bomber is in the building. And he’s got hostages.’